Stage 1: Minor headaches and more difficulty sleeping. Generally happens when I don’t have time to relax but doesn’t last more than a day.

Stage 2: Forgetting or In-ability to eat or drink. On top of the previously mentioned symptoms, if I have like a test or a presentation, I’ll forget to eat. And if I do remember and try to eat, I’ll throw it back up out of sheer nervousness and stress. I generally just don’t eat during these periods. The longest of these spells has lasted three days, where I was barely getting by on saltines and sprite.

Stage 3: Depression and mood swings. Generally post a bad test grade but can occur before a test, this generally occurs due to a sheer lack of energy from not sleeping or eating. This is when I start to get really vulnerable to everything around me. Just about anything could set me off or cause me to break down into tears. I generally seclude myself during this stage to avoid an incident.

Stage 4: Migraines and dry heaving. On top of everything else, my lack of food and sleep causes me to start getting migraines as wellad causes me to dry heave because of the lack of food in my stomach. This makes me even more irritable and so far has only happened during Finals week. Again, I generally seclude myself during this stage to avoid incident, as I’ll snap at just about anybody if given the opportunity.

Stage 5: Panic Attacks. I’ve only ever reached this stage once. It’s not fun. It happened during the roommate situation I talked about a while back and I had to have some calm me down before I could start functioning. I was in the middle of class too and it felt like my entire body was shutting down. I couldn’t understand anything that was being said to me, my chest hurt, I couldn’t breathe, and I was so scared. I’ve never been that terrified in my life. I ended up almost having a second panic attack later but my friends managed to keep me grounded during that one. I don’t know what triggers this, but I do know it has to be a very extreme amount of stress and terror given the situation I was in when I had them the first time.